Story Test
Freezing cold. Biting rain. Miserable smog. He pressed the bottle to his lips and commenced the final phase of his two-step plan to defeat all of the above. Step one: find a bottle of good whiskey. Step two, empty the bottle of said whiskey. The sweet haze of alcohol did its work quickly. He’d picked good. He didn’t particularly care for the taste, but fuck it, it’d get him drunk well enough. Drunk enough to forget. Drunk enough to ignore. The good side to this downpour was that it got rid of the pests. Not the pigeons, rats, or insects, mind you. No, those were good ''company in comparison. The ''real ''pests were the staring, bratty children who’d never seen a homeless person before, the fat, underpaid beat cops that were eager to pull some rank, write some tickets, or drag someone back to the station and forget who they’d pissed off to have such a shitty beat in the first place. If they made pest spray big enough to get rid of ''those ''annoyances, then the rain must have been God using the whole can. Way to go, God. This almost made up for everything else. ''Almost. He took another swig from the bottle, paying no mind to the sloppy streams of alcohol that dribbled down his shaggy, unkempt beard. He saw people dashing through the streets adjacent to the overpass, rushing to get somewhere that got them out of the soaking rain. People with places to be. He remembered being one of them. Only months ago. Another drink. He tried forming another profound thought. Nothing came. Good. It was finally working. He next tried thinking of something bitter and cynical, like the sudden realization that there was a hole somewhere in his jeans that the cold now made him all too aware of. No good. A few more drinks were required. ---------------- “Hey! Hey, come on, wake up. Wake up!” Reality. Again? Why? He had been in the black, lost in the shadows between thought. He was content there. He was free there. Why was he being brought back “Here drink this. Don’t fall asleep, okay? Come on, drink.” Drink? What? Something plastic was pressed to his lips. Something wet poured into his mouth. Wet and tasteless. Water? Water?! ''Why water? What happened to the whiskey? In fact, what was going on? Who was this person? “Hurr arhh yew?” “Huh, what?” The voice was feminine. Soft. It scolded him when he began tilting back. “No! Sit up! Come on, sit up! Do you want to die!?” He still couldn’t see anything. The light was too bright. Was it still night? Morning? He was still cold and wet. Was it raining? The world wouldn’t keep still. She kept telling him to sit up, but where was “up”? Every time he tried to sit toward it, she scolded him and moved him again. Why wouldn’t this woman leave him be? Wait a minute . . . could it be . . . ? “Moira, that yew . . . ?” She said something, but he didn’t hear. His mind concentrated all his will into his eyes. He needed to see. “Moira. Baby, you’re here? Moira?” He reached out for her, and she spoke again. Again, he didn’t hear. His hands explored for any proof of her. Proof she was here. Proof she really existed and this wasn’t just some damn trick of the booze. He kept searching, kept grasping. His vision was coming back, but in a thousand scattered pieces of light and pictures. He saw red hair. Red.. Not blonde, like Moira. But that meant nothing. His hands were more reliable at this point than his eyes. Her skin was warm like Moira’s. Her shoulders slender like his wife’s. This had to be Moira. Who else could it be? Devil take him, who else could it be? “Moira . . . !” “For the last time, my name is ''NOT ''Moira! Stop ''calling ''me that. ''Please.” Finally, his eyes told the truth. Through disappointing lucidity, he could see the fiery red hair, coffee brown skin, and ruby red lips assembling the stranger. Despite words that emphasized annoyance, the expression she bore toward him was one of worry. Her brown eyes were gazing into his, searching for something. Sanity perhaps. He was sure she wouldn’t find any. “Christ, your breath smells awful,” she ranted, turning her face and turning away. “How many bottles of that crap did you drink?” Now that he’d been dragged, kicking and screaming, back to reality, he looked over the woman one more time. But no matter how many times he tried, she didn’t look any more familiar. “Who the hell are you?!i” ''He demanded. “My name’s Vicky,” she told him. “It’s short for Victoria.” She raised the bottle to his lips again. “Here. Drink some more of this.” “Get that shit outta my face,” he objected, smacking the bottle so hard that it spun out of her hand, spilling water as it fell. “I don’t care about your name. Who the hell are you, and why are you bothering me?” “You’ve got ''alcohol poisoning,” she told him admonishingly. “And I’m here to ''try ''and make sure you don’t die.” She reached into a large backpack at her side, fumbling around for a moment before producing another bottle. Unopened, and full of crystal clear, fresh water. “Now here. Please don’t waste this. This is my last bottle.” She turned to the side and, still on her hands and knees, shuffled quickly despite her thick winter coat and retrieved the spilled bottle. “Okay. Still looks good,” she whispered. “Not very dirty.” Unthinkingly, he pressed the bottle to his lips and gulped down the clean, warm water. When the woman returned to sitting in front of him, she looked elated. Suddenly, guilt stabbed him for drinking what he knew was hers. She saw him hesitate. “No, no. Please go on. Drink up.” When he stubbornly started to give the bottle back, she pushed it hard back at him and gave an insistent “please” that he couldn’t refuse. She rewarded him with a beautiful, warm smile when he complied. “So,” she said, perching her arms and chin atop her knees. “You know my name. What’s yours?” He paused from sipping to say, “Nobody.” “Nobody, huh?” she said without hesitation. “That a first name or a last name?” He smirked at her sense of humor. “First. Last name’s Special.” “Hm. So you’re Nobody Special? Yeah, I’ve heard of you.”